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Three Terrorist Attacks Target Sayyeda Zeinab Area in Rural Damascus, Kill 50
Today's Headlines
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Page 4: Opinion
7 12:53 Bobby [7] 
12 20:07 JosephMendiola [3] 
12 17:07 CrazyFool [4] 
4 16:54 Shipman [4] 
1 00:59 M. Murcek [6] 
1 10:54 Sven the pelter [9] 
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14 17:40 newc [5]
3 09:54 Besoeker [8]
10 18:42 Procopius2k [5]
3 09:35 Skidmark [3]
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2 20:16 JosephMendiola [2]
Page 6: Politix
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Home Front: Politix
Trump: The Only Way Hillary Will Be Stopped Is If She Gets Indicted [VIDEO]
[Daily Caller] Donald Trump said Sunday that if Hillary Clinton "gets indicted, that's the only way she's going to be stopped" from getting the Democratic nomination.

Appearing on CNN's "State of the Union" with Jake Tapper on Sunday, Trump said, "I will tell you this, as a candidate, I will bring over many, many Dems. We're going to bring over a lot of Democrats, we're going to bring over a lot of independents. Nobody else will. In all fairness to the other candidates, they will never bring over independents."
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/22/2016 06:51 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  He's right. The Democrat (as opposed to Democratic) nomination is rigged in favor of Hildabeest. The superdelegate votes are stacked towards Hilary. These voters can vote for whomever they want; they don't have to represent the general Donk voter in any particular way--they are uncommitted in that way and are going for Hillary rather than Sanders. In 2008 about a third of the delegate votes were superdelegate votes. The superdelegate votes tend to protect the party and the establishment candidate.
Posted by: JohnQC || 02/22/2016 9:38 Comments || Top||

#2  There is another way, but good taste and sensibility prohibits further discussion.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/22/2016 10:00 Comments || Top||

#3  ... rigged in favor of Hildebeest.

Given that Mr. Sanders refused to join the Democratic Party throughout his long political career because he is a capital S Socialist -- he spent one summer at an openly Stalinist kibbutz in Israel, his honeymoon in Moscow, and flew down for an America-bashing fest in Noriega's Nicaragua -- it seems fair to me that those who hitched their wagons to the Democratic Party might prefer he not be their standard bearer.

Unfortunately, they foreclosed all the options that aren't Mrs. Bill Clinton.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/22/2016 10:21 Comments || Top||

#4  Left out is the possibility of a full and complete pardon.
Posted by: Anguper Hupomosing9418 || 02/22/2016 11:01 Comments || Top||

#5  My not-quite-a-constitutional-scholar-but-pretty-bright wife says they gotta convict her before she could be pardoned.

Sounds logical...
Posted by: Bobby || 02/22/2016 13:13 Comments || Top||

#6  Bobby, one would think so. However there was a Supreme court case, Ex parte Garland, that said that the president can pardon a federal crime at any point, even before conviction.
Posted by: Sven the pelter || 02/22/2016 13:20 Comments || Top||

#7  Ask Gerald Ford.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/22/2016 13:54 Comments || Top||

#8  If Sanders gets the popular vote and its taken away by superdelegates we may see the Dems divide into two parties. Socialist and Power-hungry crony capitalist pseudo-socialists.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 02/22/2016 14:32 Comments || Top||

#9 
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 02/22/2016 14:57 Comments || Top||

#10  Wow, I guess ABC has a thing against Rantburg.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 02/22/2016 14:59 Comments || Top||

#11  Stopped? Hah! The people who would vote for Hillary now would still vote for her if she was sitting in a jail cell.

Pablo Escobar ran the country from prison. Why not Mrs. Bill?
Posted by: SteveS || 02/22/2016 17:14 Comments || Top||

#12  As per FREEREPUBLIC, despite son Jeb suspending his campaign Bush Matriarch Babs is repor tsrongly pushing Jeb to negotiate wid the Marc Rubio about colluding to knock "The Donuuuld" Trump out of the GOP nonmination in return for Jeb getting a possible top job in any POTUS Rubio Admin???

DARE DA DONUUULD BE IN TROUBLE NOW - BABS/MA BUSH IS RILED UP???
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 02/22/2016 20:07 Comments || Top||


Champ Thanks Black Lives Matter Leaders for Their 'Outstanding Work'
[Breitbart] Flanked by liberal legislators, and Black Lives Matter founders Brittany Packnett and DeRay Mckesson, President Obama told White House meeting of young militant leftists that they "are much better organizers" than he was at their age, and that he is "confident that they are going to take America to new heights."

During Thursday's meeting on the U.S. criminal justice system, Obama praised Baltimore mayoral candidate DeRay Mckesson for his "outstanding work mobilizing in Baltimore around these issues."
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/22/2016 06:38 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Outstanding work? Like beating a decorated Vet back home from Afghanistan and robbing him?

Outstanding for Obama. What is Obama going to be doing when he is no longer President?
Posted by: Helmuth, Speaking for Slinese1626 || 02/22/2016 7:23 Comments || Top||

#2  What is Obama going to be doing when he is no longer President?

What he did before he was president. Mooching off fellow leftists, and the american taxpayer.
Posted by: Nguard || 02/22/2016 7:59 Comments || Top||

#3  This POTUS is a shameful example for a president--racist and radical leftist.
Posted by: JohnQC || 02/22/2016 9:40 Comments || Top||

#4  This POTUS is a shameful example for a president--racist and radical leftist.
Posted by JohnQC


Yes, a shameful example indeed. Even more shameful however is that fact that more than half a dozen 'Americans' voted for him, not once, but twice.

As we examine the Champ along side our current roster of presidential candidates [both pub and dem], perhaps one could conclude that the process is FUBAR, or we are getting the type of leadership we deserve, or both.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/22/2016 9:45 Comments || Top||

#5  Outstanding for Obama. What is Obama going to be doing when he is no longer President?

I'd say he would take the usual path of corrupt former politicians of speaking for exorbitant fees in return for influence and political favors while in office, but in this case I don't think anybody would be able to afford it anymore.
Posted by: gorb || 02/22/2016 10:44 Comments || Top||

#6  Next Job? President of Harvard or Yale to buy off the insurgent Red Guard SJWs. He gets reasonable prestige points, another bully pulpit to feed his ego, additional income flow. I'm sure the position gets access to some nice golf courses too.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/22/2016 12:38 Comments || Top||

#7  Head Cheese at the UN. It's the perfect job for him: High profile, important sounding and totally useless.
Posted by: SteveS || 02/22/2016 12:53 Comments || Top||

#8  and he's already suitable Anti-America
Posted by: Frank G || 02/22/2016 13:48 Comments || Top||

#9  Get out the vote "outstanding work?"
Posted by: rjschwarz || 02/22/2016 14:32 Comments || Top||

#10  Stirring words from the Race Hustler in Chief.
Posted by: Ebbang Uluque6305 || 02/22/2016 16:40 Comments || Top||

#11  Head cheese can't come a permanent security council member. I see lots of Board memberships, I also predict a kerfluffle from Augsta National.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/22/2016 16:53 Comments || Top||

#12  I still think that 'Only Black Lives Matter' [bowel] movement is a offshoot of the Democratic Party. Much like the Klu Klux Klan and the New Black Panthers.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/22/2016 17:07 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Militants online
[DAWN] THOUGH many amongst Pakistain's religious right prefer interpretations of faith anchored firmly in the past and shun most aspects of modernity as 'innovations', they have few qualms about using technology to their advantage.

For example, as noted in a recent report in this paper, the 'cyber team' of Jamaat-ud-Dawa
...the front organization of Lashkar-e-Taiba...
seems to be quite an active concern. Young, tech-savvy men are at the forefront of an operation designed to transmit the message of a group with barely disguised links to religious militancy.

Volunteers stream footage from rallies, send out live tweets and update websites.

In fact, the team claims to be active in 45 cities and towns in Pakistain. Its members say they are countering hostile propaganda from "anti-Pakistain" elements, which, surprisingly, include the TTP as well as the turban Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
group, along with 'secularists'.

Of course, this is a far cry from the ideology of old, according to which photography and film-making were both deemed unacceptable. But perhaps it is the ubiquitousness of technology, as well as the challenge posed by even more ferocious turban groups, that has caused JuD to change tack.

JuD is not the only turban group to embrace technology. A plethora of jihadi and sectarian outfits in Pakistain as well as internationally have used cyberspace as a recruiting ground and a propaganda outlet.
Posted by: Fred || 02/22/2016 00:00 || Comments || Link || [6 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistain Proxies

#1  It would be convenient to convince them that their phones need to automatically shut down 5 times a day for prayers, and NSA backups...
Posted by: M. Murcek || 02/22/2016 0:59 Comments || Top||


Power of the establishment
[DAWN] NOTHING intrigues me more than the power of our security establishment. National interest is shorthand for the interests of an institution that reigns supreme. Let us consider the recent news that has gone largely unnoticed or has been deliberately ignored. Hillary Clinton
... sometimes described as America's Blond Eminence and at other times as Mrs. Bill, never as Another William H. Seward ...
's presidential campaign received a jolt when the State Department confirmed she had used her personal server to send some top secret emails.

Our present envoy to the UN Maleeha Lodhi apparently acted as an informal messenger between the US administration and former army chief Gen Ashfaq Kayani
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred || 02/22/2016 00:00 || Comments || Link || [9 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan

#1  Why do I picture Rodney Dangerfield as a spokesman for the Trilateral commission?
Posted by: Sven the pelter || 02/22/2016 10:54 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Does Saudi intervention in Syria worry Tehran?
Posted by: ryuge || 02/22/2016 00:00 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  "Persian lives ..."
Ah, Fukit.
Posted by: Skidmark || 02/22/2016 9:32 Comments || Top||

#2  No. Not as long as 0bama is president; he is making Jimmy Carter look good.
Posted by: Sven the pelter || 02/22/2016 10:36 Comments || Top||

#3  Saudi Arabia is underpopulated. I guess they could hire mercs.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 02/22/2016 14:33 Comments || Top||

#4  :) Skid.
Posted by: Shipman || 02/22/2016 16:54 Comments || Top||


Government
Obama is looting the Treasury to pay off insurers


The Obama administration will tell any lie and break any law to prevent the president’s signature health-care program from collapsing.

Insurance companies such as UnitedHealthcare and Aetna are losing billions trying to sell ObamaCare plans, and the risk is they’ll drop out at the end of 2016. No insurance companies means no ObamaCare.

In 2014, the White House tried to avert that disaster by promising insurers a taxpayer-funded bailout, but public outrage and quick action by Sen. Marco Rubio put a stop to it. Now the administration is at it again.

Desperate to keep insurers on board, the administration scrambled to find another pot of money. Unfortunately, once again, a big part of that money pot belongs to the public.

President Obama doesn’t seem to care. On Feb. 12, the administration announced that the money will be handed out to insurers — a whopping $7.7 billion this year alone.
But it’s not just expensive: That huge handout to the insurance industry is also illegal.

This is money you and everyone else who already has insurance are forced to pay, called a reinsurance fee. You pay the fee whether you buy your own plan or get covered at work, even if your employer self-insures. You may be clueless about it, but the fee is buried in your premium or taken out of your compensation.

The text of the Affordable Care Act is clear as a bell on what this money can be used for.

Some of these annual fees — adding up to billions a year — belong to the public, not the insurance companies. The law states a fixed share “shall be deposited into the general fund of the Treasury of the United States and may not be used” to offset insurance companies’ losses.

But the administration gave all of it to the insurance companies last year, and got away with that heist. So now they’re trying it again.

Anyone in the corporate world who misused funds that way would be headed to prison. This rogue administration is going to any length — including running afoul of the law — to keep insurers hooked into ObamaCare.

In the words of University of Houston law professor Seth Chandler, who tried to call attention to the crime several months ago, this is “an illegal diversion of funds . . . to enrich insurers.” Last year alone, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas got $549 million of these reinsurance funds, while Anthem Blue Cross of California got $401 million.

How did this fly under the radar last year? Because no one — especially members of Congress — has read the law. Insurance companies weren’t about to object to getting more money than the law allows.

Plus, the announcements of these payments were buried in mind-numbing federal agency releases. The latest such disclosure came late last Friday — heading into a holiday weekend.

This week, a few health scholars took notice, including Galen Institute senior fellow Doug Badger. He says the illegal maneuver is “designed to keep a sinking ship from hitting rock bottom.”

ObamaCare was sold on lies: You can keep your health plan if you like it. And keep your doctor if you like your doctor. Then, once it was passed, the administration resorted to a long string of lawless executive actions to keep an unworkable scheme going, despite the damage being done to employers, doctors and consumers.

The administration’s diversion of public funds to its insurance-company cronies is just the latest defiance of the law.

The president has illegally delayed the employer mandate repeatedly. He’s handing out free ObamaCare plans to illegal immigrants. Statutory deadlines are routinely ignored, and funds are slyly shifted from one program to another — the law be damned.

Ultimately, ObamaCare is imperiling not only our health and our nation’s economic growth, but even our nation’s most precious asset — the rule of law.

Betsy McCaughey is the author of “Beating Obamacare” and a senior fellow at the London Center for Policy Research.
Posted by: badanov || 02/22/2016 08:06 || Comments || Link || [7 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Unfortunately, once again, a big part of that money pot belongs to the public.

A big part? All the money belongs to the public. To the tax-paying public, anyway.
Posted by: Bobby || 02/22/2016 8:21 Comments || Top||

#2  Just another 'tax'. Same as Social Security when the Johnson Administration merged all the books to loot the pot for the Great Society programs. Doesn't make much difference they'll still spend more than they'll ever take in. That's covered by the inflation tax by creating/printing money without any backing. Taking 10 percent directly of your income or allowing the value of what you do have devalue by 10 percent, the loss is still the same to you.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/22/2016 8:56 Comments || Top||

#3  These Alinskyites are going to do anything to keep this turkey alive; even break the law and break the bank. Breaking the bank was probably one of their original goals along the lines of Cloward and Piven. SCOTUS had its chance to drive a stake in the heart of this deplorable legislation but alas, they lacked the cajones to do this. Nothing in the Constitution provides for the Federal government to enact this kind of legislation at the Federal level. If a State wanted to have health insurance, it should have passed such legislation under States rights amendments. It should not have been passed at the Federal level. Rather than have a single State going broke, the entire country will go belly up.
Posted by: JohnQC || 02/22/2016 9:55 Comments || Top||

#4  The Champ regime racking up a whopping $19T, more debt that all of the rest of the presidential administrations combined. Sort of validates the author's story I suppose.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/22/2016 9:58 Comments || Top||

#5  He's also defunding the military to help pay for all his stupid stuff. It will be the next administration's problem.
Posted by: gorb || 02/22/2016 10:40 Comments || Top||

#6  What B said. You had me at Obama is looting the Treasury.
Posted by: Sven the pelter || 02/22/2016 10:44 Comments || Top||

#7  So maybe Hilly and Billy have learned a few things about looting?
Posted by: Bobby || 02/22/2016 12:53 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
43[untagged]
8Islamic State
4Taliban
2Govt of Pakistain Proxies
2Commies
2Govt of Iran
2al-Shabaab
1Haqqani Network
1al-Qaeda
1Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh
1Abu Sayyaf
1Ansar al-Sharia
1Govt of Pakistan
1Govt of Syria

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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.

Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.

Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has dominated Mexico for six years.
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Meet the Mods
In no particular order...
Steve White
Seafarious
tu3031
badanov
sherry
ryuge
GolfBravoUSMC
Bright Pebbles
trailing wife
Gloria
Fred
Besoeker
Glenmore
Frank G
3dc
Skidmark

Two weeks of WOT
Mon 2016-02-22
  Three Terrorist Attacks Target Sayyeda Zeinab Area in Rural Damascus, Kill 50
Sun 2016-02-21
  46 dead in Homs bomb attack
Sat 2016-02-20
  Saudi halts $3 bn in aid to Lebanon army
Fri 2016-02-19
  Foreigners among 24 terrorists killed in Badakhshan
Thu 2016-02-18
  Freed Gitmo detainee, ex-bin Laden aide returns to former career
Wed 2016-02-17
  44 Daesh militants killed in Nangarhar's Achin District
Tue 2016-02-16
  British Sniper Decapitates ISIS Executioner
Mon 2016-02-15
  Taliban confirm losing 13 fighters in Paktika drone strikes
Sun 2016-02-14
  Boko Haram kills at least 30 people in northeastern Nigeria
Sat 2016-02-13
  Turkish artillery hammers airfield near Aleppo
Fri 2016-02-12
  Syrian rebels launch offensive on pro Syrian troops in Latakia
Thu 2016-02-11
  Female Suicide Bombers Kill 58 in Nigeria
Wed 2016-02-10
  New Hampshire primary: Trump, Sanders win
Tue 2016-02-09
  Russian police arrest 7 Islamic State militants
Mon 2016-02-08
  ISIS executes 300+ in Mosul


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